Wonderful! - Wonderful! 387: Whoops Wong Wondies

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

Rachel's favorite in-touch and honest writer! Griffin's favorite preposterously intricate machine!Music: “Money Won’t Pay” by bo en and Augustus – https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoyaEquality Florida: https://www.eqfl.org/

Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hello, this is Griffin McRoy. And this is wonderful. Thank you for joining us for another installment of Wonderful, a podcast where we talk about things that we like that's good that we are into. our recommendation carries with it a certain amount of weight our endorsement is meaningful this show means things to lots of people and sometimes we recommend things or we talk about things in a small one D's segment before maybe we've finished that season of Bachelor in Paradise and then maybe in a later episode we feel like maybe we want to walk back some of the big statements that we made this is a new segment call and it and maybe we should call it unwonies where you can take these backseason, a 1D that you did. Whoops, Wong, one D's. Whoops, Wong, Wendy's is pretty good.

It's a pretty good name for it. I mean, the ending was kind of disappointing, but we enjoyed the season. It was nice to see. Yeah, the season was fine. It's just they wrote such a big check when they were like halfway through the season. They were like, boom, it's Bachelor Pat now. Gotcha, suckers. And then they didn't really have any sort of good ideas for how to do that.

Here's the thing we realized is that they thought, like, we're going to bring in some game mechanics. We're going to go back to the Bachelor pad where they're going to have to play games together. But then they didn't actually bring in anyone that knew anything about designing games. So all of their... It's fucking... I'm going to spoil the ending of this season of Bachelor in Paradise. If you care about that, then please skip forward.

At this point, you've had a lot of time. You've had plenty of time. The season ends, right? And they do the thing that they used to do at the end of Bachelor pad, except that there's two final couples instead of one final couple, which is like a wild thing that is so convoluted. But whatever. They go ahead and they split the prize pot from three.

What was it? It was going to be $500,000 or something? No, that's too much money. I thought it was always going to be $250. I don't know. Anyway, they get it down to two couples and then they get one person from each couple to come up to this, you know, podium at the beach where Jesse's like, love or money? What's it going to be? And the idea is if you pick money and the other person picks love, they go to the fantasy suite while you run off with the $250K.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, got you sucker. Like hamburger style. way they have it set up, it's like you're at the top, because you've chosen love. And then down on the beach, there's a big barrel of money. Yeah. And like the idea. You'll have to watch your partner take the money, roll it out like a fucking oil bear. Like twirl their long mustache and escape off into the.

But he's like, if you both choose love, there's, you won't be guaranteed the money or something like that. And it's like, oh, okay, that's really weird. But everybody of the final two couples chose love, love, love, love, love, love across the board. and then they get to the fantasy suite and they hug there's a proposal that's nice but then jesse walks out and he's like so you chose love now you get to pick from one of these three envelopes which will have an amount of money up to $250,000 on it take your pick a literal silver tray with some roses on it to make it look festive and then it's just three envelopes three envelopes and then they don't say what's on the on They don't save the amount of money that's written on the envelopes. So you don't know what one.

The first couple that goes up, they pick one is $125,000. And they're like, oh, yeah, like, yeah, objectively great. We were at, like, the school auction for our children's elementary school. Like, it felt like they got down to the last episode and they were like, oh, shoot. Yeah. We forgot how to do it. How to do this. So, like, this couple picks love, and then they are penalized, one hundred and

$25,000, ending up with a total of $125,000 when they could have just said, listen, you pick money, I'll pick love, and then we'll hook back up after this and take the $250K and fucking run with it, dog. My theory when they announced the like, either you pick love or money is that they sequestered the two individuals and did not allow them to check in with each other. Because if they did, certainly somebody would have said, I'm going to pretend. So easy to game this. I'm going to pretend I pick money and then we're going to get back together and I'll split the

money with you. But the couple of the picks is $125,000, I don't think they know how to react because I think they think they picked the lowest amount that's in the envelopes, which is evidenced by the fact that the second couple that goes in picks an envelope, their cash prize for Bachelor in Paradise is $190,000. What the fuck, Bachelor? What are you guys doing? $19,000? My theory was that they went over their alcohol budget by like $10,000. And so they were like, well, we'll just take it out of the prize pot at the end so we can break even. So let's give them 190 instead of 200. But they didn't know what's in the other envelopes.

So I made the point of it is like being on who wants to be a millionaire, except who wants to win some amount of money. And Regis Philbin is like, all right, for the next question, you've banked some money. For this next question, it's a hard one. You can drop out now and take some money home. That's correct. You've got more. It is more.

I can't tell you exactly how much. It's fucking crazy. Do you want to drop out now and maybe lose some amount of money or do you want to risk it for some amount of money? I know I sound like a snob so often when I talk about reality TV, but it's so hard to spend so much time watching so many finely crafted, intricate, usually South Korean reality competition shows where the rules are so fucking finely tuned to have them go on a show where it's like, everybody, you're going to stand outside of this circular room and answer questions. and if you pick the same questions as another person, you go in the middle and maybe you kiss or something. We're going to do a challenge that is entirely walkie-talkie-based, and we are going to not purchase good walkie-talkies.

Guys, no fucking joke. There's this challenge where one of them gets in a box and relays instructions to the other person, but they bought the shittiest walkie-talkies ever. Nobody could hear anything. So there must have been one pair of walkie-talkies that actually worked because some teams seem to have no problem communicating, and then the other teams could not understand each other.

crazy to me it is crazy to me can you imagine if the creators of devil's plan sat down and watched the season of bachelor of paradise heartbreak how hard how challenging that would be like wait so that's the game so they that's all that was the whole game that they did we don't get nasty here on wonderful as a rule usually this was so flagrant this was so flagrant and it's fucking shame on me charlie brown with the football we watch perfect match i'll stand 10 toes on that shit that's that That show has become what BIP aspires now to be. But this, it's so crazy, the number of huge whiffs. They were trying stuff out.

This season, it was a growing year. Isn't that what they say in sports? A rebuilding year. A rebuilding year for Bachelor in Paradise, assuming that the franchise stays around. Who knows, man. Who knows? Do you have a small wonder?

I guess we can do small wonders real quick. That usually is where those go. Um, my small wonder, uh, do you have one? Uh, I mean, a new Holo Night, Holonite Silk Song, been in the work seven years. I know that you don't know, have much religion there, but it's, uh, it's really fucking good. It's really good. You're like a little bug and you're exploring this little bug world and it's all dark and moody, but it's, like, really fun to explore. Yeah. Yeah. Big Sun seems very delighted by it.

Big Sun is taking a swing up. he's eight folks and this game is hard as fuck like it's hard yeah it's hard for me and i like played the hell out of the last one and i'm still getting my butt kicked so there's a lot of like coaching and help but he beat his first boss last night and the the triumph on his face was oh god so good yeah he's very determined he is it's in his blood he beat tears of the kingdom largely by himself it was yeah i mean come on so proud i am very proud um i mean i'm to say like I don't know I'm back on that pumpkin bread got that pumpkin bread in there we had a few cool days I mean it's back into

summertime weather but like we had a few cool days there and I made some pumpkin bread and I felt like really I was leaning in and that's kind of I don't know that's September man yeah sure I got I got another small wonder that we haven't really talked about because we didn't have an episode last week apologies for that we were on tour and then everyone in our family got sick as you can probably tell from my baritone we You went to see Chris Fleming live here in D.C. And he was fucking hysterically funny. So funny.

Probably the hardest I've laughed at a live comedy show in this decade. Griffin was laughing so loud. And I think loud in a way that when we finished watching the show, there were fans that spotted him of the McElroy podcast and probably knew he was there because they had heard him laugh. witch like cackle that I yeah I mean I think he's I think he is one of the funniest to do it today and just the the extent to which he can keep a bit like going and keep building on it is is really genuinely masterful uh in its in its in its craft yeah and also like do the crowdwork like crowdwork is so fucking funny. I don't know if every crowd is as rowdy as the crowd in DC was. And not to say that DC was rowdy, but people were- It was a 3 p.m. show that we saw him out. Yeah. The Wiggles

hour, as he called it. But he, I mean, he read DC so well and doing that kind of like local comedy is so hard. But his only observation is like the number of tucked in shirts per capita here is through the roof. And like people, people were just kind of occasionally shouting things out. And he would like to stop his incredibly complicated program that he was doing. Engage with that person and then hop right back into where he was. And also notice the anxiety that people felt when he would hop out of his incredibly complicated program. Yeah. That I really appreciated. He's like, whoa, you guys were really nervous that I'm not going to be able to get back to my story. In that way, in a way that it feels risky. But like, I don't know, the more that someone can pull that

off, the more you feel like, okay, we're in good hands here. Yeah, no, that was fantastic. Go see Chris Fleming. If you. He's still on tour. He is still on tour, and I think it's, I think he's just one of the best man. Yeah. You go first this week. I do. What have you got for me? Okay.

The person I'm going to talk about, I am like 99% sure you will have heard of. Okay. But I'm not sure that you are actually, like, familiar with their work. And that is the children's author, Beverly Cleary. Beverly Cleary wrote Ramona. Yes. And that's all I can remember. But I do know that.

So where's my prize? You drop so many literary references on this show, and I think I've clocked. This is the second one. So I would like a reward, please. A little candy treat, a sticker, a little ball, perhaps a grape. I mean, the one you're forgetting is the mouse and the motorcycle. Damn it. I don't know if you realize that was Beverly Cleary, though.

I didn't realize that. Because it was kind of a departure from form a little bit. Well, I don't think I read Ramona, so I'm not sure I know what the form is. Yeah. So I wouldn't have clocked that either way. The book that brought me to talking about Beverly Cleary was another book she had written that you might be familiar with called Dear Mr. Henshaw. Hmm. I don't think I know. I've heard that one. I don't know of it. Dear Mr. Henshaw, I was thinking of this book today. It is a book where a young boy writes letters to, like, his favorite author. Okay.

And the book is totally written just as the letters, and it is just from his side of the exchange. What's that called? There's a word for epistemology. Oh, gosh, you're so close. Epistolary? I think you're right. Because I had never really, yes, juvenile epistolary novel. Epistolary. Fuck yeah. I'm so glad I remembered that. Graf, I'm so impressed with you. I mean,

I remembered it mostly from Bible stuff because there's a lot of, there's a lot of. You always get me with that Bible stuff, man. What can I say? I'm if I had a well-rounded, I'll bring, runs the gamut. I, the thing that, like, struck me. So I was thinking about that book, so it was one of my favorite books when I was a kid. And I didn't realize, and this is something that happens a lot, I think, when you are a child, is that what the book was really about. Yeah. And the reason that she wrote it was that she had gotten a prompt from one of her fans to write a book about a child dealing with their parents' divorce. And I was like, wait, what?

Is that sort of the subject matter of the letters? I don't remember that at all about dear Mr. Henshaw. Is that sort of what the letters are about to Mr. Hinshaw? There is a point where he talks about having to, like, move. Okay. And like kind of what they can afford when they move and kind of the change in his environment. Yeah. And I don't think I ever really connected that it was a result of a divorce.

I would have to look at the book again. honestly um does this cover do anything for you that's just a boy writing that no that was my attempt to see if maybe you did actually remember this book um anyway it was one of my faves um but i also of course loved the romona books um beverly cleary was she a detective in those books or am i getting my that's harriet the spy thank you another one of my favorites that wasn't beverly Cleary though. No. No. No. Beverly Cleary. So the thing that is kind of incredible about Beverly Cleary, I mean, first of all, she lived to 104 years old. Jesus Christ. Which is, you know, kind of remarkable, I would say. And the thing that, I mean, is extra super amazing is that

the books really hold up. I was reading some of the books before we started recording today because I was just thinking like part of why the reason I was thinking about this is that we're always kind of struggling to find books that Henry will like. Yeah. And a lot of the books that we read as kids just don't feel appropriate because they feel dated. Boring. Yeah. I feel like either the pacing or the voice is wrong or the subject matter. I don't know. When I was reading her books, I kind of felt like, I don't know. I felt like maybe there was a shot.

Yeah. I might be wrong about that. But anyway, so she was born in 1916. Wow. Yeah. She went to junior college, then went on to library school and was a librarian. And the first book she wrote was in 1950, and it was called Henry Huggins, which was about like an eight-year-old boy finding a dog.

And that was what maybe was maybe our, maybe our Henry Huggins would like that book. Maybe. I don't know. But in that book, there were side characters of Beatrice or Beezus and her little sister Ramona. So this is like a spin-off situation. Which, yeah, turned into spin-off. So she wrote into the 50s and 60s. Mouse in the motorcycle came after she had her own kids in the 60s. She had a little boy who did not enjoy reading. And she basically sat him down and was like, what kind of books would you be interested in? And he was like a book about a motorcycle. Cool. Man, that's a good idea.

So that's how she came up with Mouse in the motorcycle. Yeah. I mean, Griffin, if you're thinking about writing children's books, maybe you should. Yeah, I mean, I'm between projects right now. It's a good time for me to sit our kids down and say, what do you guys like? What can I write a whole book about? But yeah, what's wild is that, so Henry Huggins, 1950, Henry and Beezus, 1952, the Ramona books didn't show up until the late 1960s. So she kind of walked away from those characters for a long time and then brought them back. and those by far are most popular characters.

The thing that was so great about those books is that she was so in touch with kind of that experience of being a kid, and it was written in this way that felt very true. I don't know, felt very true to like how you experience your world as a kid. I was reading this section of one of the books. What was that? I have the e-book up on my computer and it has page journey noises.

Oh, man, that was crisp, babe. I was reading a section of Ramona the Pest because I was trying to remember like, what is it all about? Because I don't really remember the subject matters of the book. And she's talking about walking to something. school on her first day. And she says, quote, then Mary Jane arrived. Miss Quimby, would it be all right if Beezis and I take Ramona to kindergarten?

No, said Ramona instantly. Mary Jane was one of those girls who always wanted to pretend she was a mother and who always wanted Ramona to be the baby. Nobody was going to catch Ramona being a baby on her first day of school. Why not, Mrs. Quimby asked Ramona. You could walk to school with Beatrice like a big girl. No, I couldn't. Ramona was not fooled for an instant.

Jane would talk in that silly voice she used when she was being a mother and take her by the hand and help her across the street and everyone would think she was a baby. That's really, really, very, very, really, very good. Just, like, very, like, straightforward and very honest. And it's something that, like, kids feel and maybe don't have the best skills to vocalize or, I don't know, expound upon. Yeah, and it's a very, like, memorable feeling. Sure. Like, you're much more perceptive as a kid than adults realize and kind of being able to speak to that and I mean that was written in 1968 and there's nothing there's nothing dated about that um you know they're not talking about playing kick the can right yeah as so many books from the era do um you read a hearty boy's book

and it's like half kick can kicking box car children again a lot of can a lot of cans a lot of Rubella. She said in an interview with her alma mater, where she went to library school, she said, as a child, I dislike books in which children learn to be better children. Hell yes. Which I thought was a nice way of putting it. She said she didn't really like reading as a kid. And a lot of it was because she just didn't find the material particularly interesting.

Yeah. And she worked really hard, I think, to speak to that experience. and she said like she felt very lucky to have such a strong memory of her own childhood. Yeah. And to be able to kind of draw on that so precisely when she wrote her books. I'm always really impressed by people who have such, I don't know, coherent memories from their childhood. I feel like mine is so so patchy and people who are able to conjure that and use it in their writing and stuff. It feels like a, I don't know, a superpower.

In the book, Ramona and her father, her dad loses his job. And then she hears later him talking about some kid making a bunch of money being in a television commercial. And so she decides she's going to make a television commercial to, like, earn money for the family. And so she, like, goes out and makes, like, a crown for herself out of, like, the burrs in, like, the field near their house. And then her dad has to pick all the burrs out of her hair.

And I was just like, God, it's just like so specific. And brutal. Yeah. She said that when she was a kid, she always wondered, quote, why didn't authors write books about everyday problems that children could solve by themselves? Which I feel like is such a like precise again. Like, why weren't there more stories about children playing? Why couldn't I find more books that would make me laugh? These were the books I wanted to read and the books I was eventually to write.

Yeah. So yeah, I just found it really inspired. to kind of read about her and kind of remember her, uh, her experience and read those books again, too. I mean, I don't know. I, you know, I'm always scared to show stuff to Big Sun and have him not like it. And, you know, that was my one shot. Yeah, right. But I just kind of felt like, you know, it's, it's a good reminder that there are some books out there that are, in fact, timeless. And I feel like, I feel like her books definitely are. Yeah. Can I steal you away? Yes.

It's a weird one. There's a few reasons I wanted to do it, though, and I'll tell you about those after I introduce it. I want to talk about how crazy the insides of our ears are. I was going to do a whole segment on the inner ear because it's like crazy how much stuff is going on in just your inner ear. But honestly, there's so much stuff happening throughout the year that is just batshit wild that I, decided I'm going to try and tackle the whole kitten caboodle. Go for it, man. I would love to learn more about the ear.

I feel like I have learned a lot about the ear through my own E&T journey and through Henry's, especially his E&T journey. Yeah. The number of ear, nose, and throat doctor visits that we have done in the last eight years is between my nose stuff and his ear. If one of us had throat stuff, we'd really have the whole gamut of ear, nose and throat. We get like a real punch card and then like a free sandwich. But like I've learned a lot because every time you go to a, what is it,

otolaryngologist, that sounded right, they always have models and diagrams of the ear. And every time I am confronted with that, I'm just fucking blown away at the construction. It is bonkers. It is bonkers because there's stuff in there that doesn't look like any other stuff in your body. Well, it explains why too, because, you know, we just watch that. final draft show. Yes. And there were a lot of, you know, like fighters on there whose ears had just been devastated. Yes. In like various like boxing matches. And like there's not a lot you can do to repair those guys because they're so complex. Yeah, of course. Like it's, the ear is a very

complicated thing. The ear is a super complicated thing. So there's three parts of the ear. I'm going to try not to get to like middle school science class, but like I don't know. I definitely learned this stuff at some point and then immediately was like, I don't need to have remembered this and forgot it. outer middle and inner. Outer middle inner, right? And the outer ear is also called the auricle, a-U-R-I-C-L-E, the oracle, which is just like you're visible, what you can see, right? And the ear canal leading up to the eardrum, right? Yeah. It's not especially spectacular. It is cool that those can be different, like the fact that some lobes connect and some don't and some point forward and some, like, that's cool. I think that's pretty neat. It's also kind of

wild that your outer ear just makes wax that it is constantly pushing outward to like get stuff like you have like a conveyor belt inside your ear of wax that is just always trying to get stuff out of there that's fucking cool uh when you get to the middle year this is where shit gets wild you got your ear drum right and as you hear sound waves hit that it vibrates that that right behind that there's an empty hollow not empty but a hollow chamber like a pocket and in that pocket are the ossicles, which sounds like I'm saying obstacles. Or popsicles. Or popsicles.

Like in a toddler way. And it's like a three-part machine that translates the vibrations of your eardrum into like vibrations in your inner ear that like moves the fluid in your inner ear around, which is what creates the signals that go to the brain that is noise that makes sound that you hear. One of those ossicles, the last one sort of in the machine, is a tiny little wishbone-shaped guy. Do you know the name of it? Do you know the name of any of the inner ear bones? I can only remember this one. I did. I don't. Stapes. It's the Stapes. Oh, no, I didn't know that one. The Stapes is the smallest one. It's at the very tip and it like connects to like a little

tiny oval membrane of the inner ear that it like kind of gently, gently, so gently wiggles around to create the signals. It is three millimeters long. It is a three millimeter long bone in your body. And I saw a picture of like the middle ear bones just like on someone's fingertip, which is crazy. I don't know how they got them, probably some way that is unpleasant to think about. But like seeing the state, if you stacked up two pennies, the height of that is three millimeters. That's how big the stapes is. Wow.

It's so, so, so, so little. And it is like a bottle net of all sort of like sound and how it goes into the, how it goes into the ear. That's fucking wild that you got this tiny little baby bone in your ear that connects the outside world to your brain. Like that's so, that is profoundly strange to me. You're really making a case for why people pursue like the E&T profession because it is like kind of amazing. It's so incredible. We're just in the middle ear too. And I even gotten to my favorite part of the middle ear, which is the Eustation tube.

Oh, yeah. You know about the Eustation tube. I know about that one. We do, we've had to learn about the Eustation two. What with the number of ear infections we have, uh, uh, uh, weather. in this house, you're, you got like a back door to that little pocket in your middle ear, right, where the, where all the obstacles are. And it's a tiny little tube called the Eustachian tube that connects down to the back of your nose. And that tube is closed by default. By default,

it is like fully like shut. It is squinched clothes, right? Anytime you chew or yawn or swallow, anytime that you feel your eardrums pop, it's not actually your eardrums popping. It is a regular of the outer air pressure and the pressure of the air inside of your middle ear that is regulated by that you station tube opening and letting the air sort of normalize, right? That is mostly why I wanted to talk about this. I had an experience when we were at DragonCon, we were doing a thing in a hotel, and we went up to the 47th floor of this building in this inward-facing elevator so you could look down into the lobby for 47 stories below you, which was really freaky.

but in the elevator, like around floor 25, everyone at the same time was like, ah, ah, as our ears all pops sort of at the same time, which is like sort of a wild thing. This is the most mind-boggling part of this. And this is something I recently learned, and it kind of, it freaked my bean a little bit. So this is like a bean freak warning. If you don't want to know this, let me ask you a question. And this question is tough to verbalize and it's tough to understand, but think about what I am asking. Can you voluntarily, I'm not saying like, is it possible?

I'm asking if you, Rachel, can voluntarily, without yawning or chewing or swallowing, can you regulate the pressure in your eustachian tube just with like the muscles in your, in your jaw? Can you click your ears is another way of putting it? Everybody at home, I hope you are doing it too, just to see if you can. I don't think so. This thing is, this phenomenon is really, really tough to describe. I can do it. And I've always sort of been able to do it without realizing, like, it's a thing that my body can do. I can, like, if I move my jaw, I can, like, feel it in my ears.

But it's not like a, it's not, nothing moves. That is the wild part about the clicking of the ears. You're just thinking about it? Yeah. Well, no, I'm not thinking about it. Like, there's a muscle I am flexing. I forget that it's like tympanic. something muscle that you flex.

This is how Wikipedia phrases this, okay? Some people learn to voluntarily click their ears together or separately, performing a pressure equalizing routine by opening their eustachian tubes when pressure changes are experienced as in ascending or descending in an aircraft. Mountain driving. That's probably mountain driving. Oh, yeah, I guess elevator lift, drops, et cetera. Some people are even able to deliberately keep their eustation tubes open for a brief period

and even increase or decrease air pressure in the middle ear. the clicking can actually be heard by putting one's ear to another's while performing the clicking sound babe i didn't know that last part and i took a voice memo of my ear and i did it and i could fucking hear it and i was like what there's like a thing my body can do that i didn't know is the thing do you want to hear it okay Oh my god Wow it sounded like blinking Like yeah It sounded like your eyes blinking Yeah I'm not going to do it into the microphone Because I don't want gross people

Like a loud blink All the way out It sounds like a loud blink That's a really good way of putting it It's just a thing I can do Yeah now I'm wondering Because I feel like I'm trying to do it right now I'm thinking about it

But I don't know if it's actually doing it It's sort of like a back of the throat Sort of feeling But it's like It feels like I'm raising the eye hours of my ears. That's a really good way of putting it. That's like crazy. That's like crazy. And like every everything that I found about this like thing, like every thread that I would find about it would just be people going like, holy shit. Like I didn't know this is the thing people could do.

I didn't know this is a thing. But apparently it's not a thing that like. Yeah, you're describing it as kind of flexing like helped me kind of get my head around it. I don't even know what's going on in there when I do it. It's crazy, but it makes a sound. And sometimes it feels okay when my ears are, like, experiencing quite a bit of pressure. Anyway, inner ear, it just looks like some fucked up, like, Junji Ito shit. Like, you have, first of all, it's in a part of your skull called the bony labyrinth. Wild. That's pretty good.

And you have that spiral thing, the cochlea, which has all the fluid in it, and that handles sort of the hearing side of things. And then you have three semi-circular rings that kind of join at sort of right angles that have fluid in it. And those three rings, if you think about like sort of an X, Y, and Z axis sort of situation, that handles your balance. And those have the fluid in them, too. So, like, you have like three levels, like tools in your ear that are. This should be a video game. How did that work?

Just like traveling through the ear. Yeah, that would be cool. that would be magic school bus it yeah there's just there's a lot to talk about with the ear i have barely scratched the surface but it's fucking wild how much stuff it handles how much stuff it can do yeah how super intricate like how preposterously intricate a machine it is uh and i don't know we've become very familiar familiar with the the ears workings because of uh you know tubes and surgeries and what have you that you and I have both had and our kids have experienced. But it is frustrating how finicky it can be at times, certainly.

But I'm just kind of blown away by like the hardware that's going on in there because it's really, really insane. I really, I have so many questions about the ear because it just seems like some people are more predisposed to challenges than others. Like some people will go most of their. life and like almost never have or never have an ear infection you know just because their ears drain like so dang well you know like like like it just or if they get sick it just never settles in their ears some people whenever they get sick they also get a bonus ear infection

which is which has been the case honestly at this house i feel like the architecture of of my head and i guess of big son's head or ear in particular is such that if either of us ever gets water in our ear, it instantly turns into some kind of infection. It turns into mood slime from Ghostbusters, too. And I feel like it's something about the way that they are built. And I just think it's interesting. And, like, I wonder if it has been narrowed down, you know, by science. Maybe your bony labyrinth is really hard to, it's Pans Labyrinth.

I did have a doctor tell me once that I had very narrow ear canals. And I felt like maybe I should be flattered. But maybe that's why stuff can't get out of there. What tone of voice did he have when he said that? Do I have to go kick this guy's ass? Do you want to know what our friends at home are talking about? Yes. Ansel says, I love to put a hook in the wall and hang up a tool or other useful object right in arm's reach where I'll need it.

Screwdriver, hook, hairbrush, hook, shopping bag full of new hooks, hook. I do like that. That is really great. I put little hooks up to hang our kids little jackets from. And it does make me very happy. It is great. every time you use a hook, and you're like, where's the kid's jacket? Oh, hook right there.

On the hook where it's supposed to be. Noah says, my girlfriend and I have found a YouTube series called Koso, that's spelled K-A-S-S-O. It's basically Ninja Warrior on a skateboard. It's wonderfully obscure, lighthearted, and everyone involved is just so genuinely happy to be doing this weird thing. Beating the clock events are, of course, the standard, but my favorite are any event where it's just simply, who can get the furthest on this crazy obstacle. This is a Japanese, I don't know if it's a show that is, like, airing on TV overseas, or if it's, It is just strictly a YouTube thing. Evan, Minster actually sent me a link to this a long time ago.

I watch a clip, but I didn't know. It was like a recurring thing. But they will set up like how on Ninja Warrior they have like horses, obstacle horses going over big pools of water. This will be like grind this winding rail that goes over this pit of water. And people just try to balance on their skateboards as they go. That's cool. It is Ninja Warrior on a skateboard.

It's very fun. We should watch some time. Thank you so much for listening. Thanks to Bowen and Augustus for the use for a theme song, money won't pay. You find a link to that in the episode description. We got some new merch up at Macroydmerch.com. We've got a new shirt modeled after Geryl from the Adventure Zone. It was designed by Lynn Doyle that I'm just wild about. It looks really, really good. It's just a nice shirt, folks. Stop grilling me about this, okay? It's just a nice shirt with a cool picture of a two

horned horse on it. Why do you like this shirt, Griffin? Hey, calm down. I love it. 10% of all merch proceeds month will be donated to Equality, Florida, which is dedicated to securing full equality for Florida's LGBTQ community. Got some live shows coming up. This week, we're going to be doing Mbim Bam and Taz in San Antonio and Austin. And I think at our Austin Mbim Bam show, we're going to open with Wonderful as the two prodigal children, who is us. We're coming back, guys. So if you're coming to the Mbim Bam and show and you have a question you want, read, go ahead and shoot your email to NBMBAM at maximum fund.org and put your city in the subject line.

I guess also if you're going to be at that wonderful show, send in your own audience submission, something you love about Austin if you're going to be at that show. Oh, that's fun. Maybe we could read one of those on stage. That's it, folks. Thank you. Oh, bit.ly slash Macroy tours is where you can go for ticket links. We're also coming to Utah and California later this year. Thank you so much for listening. Hope you had enjoyed. And I think hopefully we'll be able to stand by all the stuff we talked about this week. And we won't have to unwundied next time. You know what I mean? That should be a sometimes food. Money won't working on money working on Maximum Fun A Worker Own Network Of Artist-owned shows

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